Israel awarded three medals at International Olympiad in Informatics, hosted this year in Canada, while Iranian team wins four

Dudi Cohen|Published: 23.08.10 , 07:38

The Iranian team won four medals in this year's International Olympiad in Informatics, hosted last week in Canada. Israel's
team had to make do with just three. The Iranians
were awarded a gold medal, two silver medals and a bronze medal, and reached 13th place out of 80 teams from around the world.

Israeli medalist Gal Dor, 16, of Hod Hasharon, will begin 11th grade next year, but has already managed to complete an undergraduate degree in mathematics at the Open University, and is continuing towards a masters at Bar-Ilan University.

Daniel Hadas, 16, also a medal winner, is currently completing his first undergraduate degree at the same time as he finishes his matriculation exams. His father is Dr. Hadas from the mathematics and computer science department of the Open University, and in his case the apple really didn't fall far from the tree.

The third winner is Rotem Lis (18) from Tel Aviv.

Prof. Messer-Yaron with Israel's team (Photo: Gideon Markovitch)

Prof. Hagit Messer-Yaron, president of the Open University, congratulated the young Israeli winners.

"I'm sure that despite the trend limiting sources of knowledge available to young people to the limits of Wikipedia, those who choose to study towards a degree or even just take some academic courses are advancing themselves and forming the correct basis for higher education," she said.

Competitors are required to solve problems and program computers. Despite the disappointment Israel's team experienced, they can always try to improve for next year, when the International Olympiad in Informatics will be held in Thailand.